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IV518 - March 2018

A year ago at the World Economic Forum, China’s president, Xi Jinping, won plaudits from Davos elites for his commitment to open trade. Of course, because China’s economy is heavily dependent on exports, so-called “free trade” is in its interest, so President Xi’s stand was no surprise.

In the middle of the harshest winter for more than a decade, Britain finds itself still gripped by the icy fingers of neoliberal austerity. Both the health service (NHS) and local government stagger from crisis to crisis, as savage spending cuts by Theresa May’s Conservative government make the provision of adequate services – those used mainly by the elderly, disabled people, the ill, the poor and the homeless – impossible. Eight years of austerity and harsh pay restraint among public sector workers have pushed economic growth into a nosedive, sharply reducing tax income, thus giving a further twist to the knife of Tory cutbacks.

As the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang take place, the Korean peninsula is experiencing a moment of détente whose consequences cannot be predicted, but which has already changed the geopolitical situation and sheds new light on the way in which the question of reunification is posed.

Domestic Worker Organizers, 1960s-1970s

In the mid-to-late 20th century, while the Civil Rights movement was well under way, Black domestic workers spearheaded a movement of their own. Dorothy Bolden, Geraldine Roberts, Josephine Hulett and other African-American household laborers fought for respect, professionalism, and improved working conditions for their profession.

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Against the Current takes the opportunity to honor some of the heroic women fighters of the present and recent past. Obviously this is only a small list that symbolizes much larger movements of resistance. We cite them here both for their own contributions and for the freedom struggles they represent.

The central government of Indonesia has repeatedly announced its intention to universalise access to clean water by 2019. To achieve this, an estimated 27 million new connections are needed, with a major investment gap of IDR 274.8 trillion (US$20.8 billion).

The importance of the formation of the CIG (Concejo Indígena de Gobierno – Indigenous Council of Government) and the campaign of its spokesperson, Marichuy, to register as an independent presidential candidacy goes beyond an electoral campaign.

Right wing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) was inaugurated in a January 7, 2018 ceremony in a nearly empty National Stadium in the capital Tegucigalpa. Since the stolen election of November 26, 2017, the country had been totally militarized to protect his fraudulent victory — with a death toll of more than 34 killed by military and police.

At the People’s Summit for a Global Pact of Solidarity with Migrants and Refugees, held in Marrakech December 8th and 9th of 2018, hosted by La Via Campesina and its member organisations of the Middle East and North Africa (MeNa) Process, the global peasant movement and its allies have issued a scathing critique of the Global Compact on Migration and rejected it.

WE WEREN’T expecting much, as the ministers had been peppering the media for two days...and we were indeed not disappointed. However, Macron’s speech tonight revealed the nature of his policy, even as it falters against the movement of “yellow vests.”

Faced with the mobilisation of the yellow jackets, the government began to retreat, announcing the abolition, for the year 2019, of the increase in fuel taxes. The government, which was showing its "inflexibility" just a few days ago, is panicking and trying to put out the fire it started itself.

The call for donations we launched has been a success. Several thousand euros have been donated. In addition, we have received a commitment to donate a considerable amount of labour to finish the translation whch is now moving ahead rapidly. With these donations, the IIRE and Resistance Books can now plan the publication of the book in mid-2019.